Alas the latest isn't the greatestIt might be cheap but sometimes it's nasty. Jack Schofield offers a guide to the first-time buyer.20 October 1983

Choosing a home micro is difficult — probably more difficult than choosing a business model. Among home micros there is no standardisation either of hardware or software. Each brand has its own dialect of Basic programming language. Even if different micros use Microsoft Basic — the de facto "standard "brand — each will have its own sound and graphics commands, and its own way of handling cassette tape and floppy disc storage.

In fact virtually all the software — the commercially available programs — is incompatible. This is the case not only between different machines but often between different models, both old and current, from the same manufacturer.

The situation is similar to the video recorder market. VHS tapes will not run on a Betamax machine, or vice versa. The old Philips 1500 and new 2000 ranges are similarly incompatible. With home computers, unfortunately, the problem is far worse because there are not three or four but some 25 different systems, with further subdivisions for semi- and non-compatible model variations. Just about the only company to avoid this morass is Atari, all of whose micros run the same software, but of course, not the same cartrides [sic] as their VCS video games machines.

So there are two ways to choose your microcomputer.

You can either select what you think is the best hardware, or else choose the one with the best, or the most, software.

However, I would still not recommend the beginner to buy the latest machine, let alone wait for that wonderful new model which is always; but always, just over the horizon. For a start, most new machines have "bugs" — flaws in the Basic language, the operating system, and often the hardware, too. Many early buyers have had terrible struggles with their machines before the manufactures sort these out. Then, most new machines are short of "peripherals" — add-ons such as disc drives for storing programs, joysticks, printers, speech synthesizers, light pens and all the rest of the paraphernalia. Often there is initially little or no software and this normally takes about a year to appear in reasonable quantity.

If you wait, most machines get cheaper. A year ago, for example, you could have paid £345 for a Commodore G4 with no software available; today it costs £199 to £229 and quite a lot of software is starting to appear. Similarly the Atari 800 has dropped from £450 to £300, and the TI-99/4a from £200 to £100. Only the BBC Model B is more expensive now than when it was launched.

This does not mean you can choose any old machine, because old machines get discontinued, too. The Acorn Atom and Sinclair ZX-80 arc examples, while the days of the Vic-20 must be numbered.

Very successful machines, however, are likely to last longer than less successful ones. And when they are updated, the new models are more likely to be compatible than not. Thus Apple kept faith with their users, maintaining broad compatibility with the Apple II — launched in 1977 — through the II Plus and IIe. Atari's new 600XL and 800XL are compatible with their 1979 models the 400 and 800. The Acorn Electron is at least semi-compatible with the popular BBC Model B.

The ideal solution is to choose an established machine that is one to two years old and/or for which lots of software exists. The problem then is finding the software you like, and can afford, because then you simply buy the machine it runs on.

This also makes sense because over the long term you are likely to spend more money on software and peripherals than on the original hardware.

Choosing a machine for its software is not easy. You have to find a shop that stocks it, and is willing to demonstrate it at some length. If you require a specific type of program, this is essential. In the home-micro market, many good programs are only available for one machine. There are, of course, numerous rip-offs.

For example, if you or your offspring is mad keen on the arcade games Centipede or Donkey Kong then you can buy these for the Atari. For other machines you can buy copies with names like Millipede, Centibug, Crawler, Super Snake, Katerpillar Attack and so on.

Donkey Kong copies are called things like Donkey King, Crazy Kong, Zany Kong or Killer Gorilla — you get the idea. Many such imitations look quite like the real thing, but may play much worse. It's rather like buying a Star Wars video — or Beatles record — remade by lookalikes. Most will be awful. Some, very few, arc actually better than the originals. But you have to try a lot of them to find out.

Some independent software houses like Melbourne House and Thorn EMI are starting to produce their programs for a range of different machines, so the situation is improving.

If your requirements are more general, then you can take pot luck. For example if, you want to do word processing, there are now ten word processing programs for the Commodore 64. You could buy the machine with reasonable confidence that one of them will suit you. By contrast, there are only two usable word processors for the Dragon so you had better make sure you like one of them before you buy a Dragon for word processing.

Once you get into the shop, the sales pitch will start. This machine has a 6809 cpu (central processing unit) 48K of RAM, 672 and 380 pixel graphics, 9 octaves of sound and so on. Ignore it. Look at three or four of the best available programs on the screen, and judge the results The problem with specifications is that they are not a reliable guide to performance. For example, the 6809 microprocessor is indeed more powerful than the more common 6502 or Z-80. But more people know how to program these, and far more good software is available for machines that use them. The 6809 is more powerful, but not better.

The amount of RAM (random access or "read/write" memory, where you store programs and data) is a major selling point, but ask how much RAM is available directly for Basic programming. You will find the 64K Commodore 64 and the 48K Atari 800 both have about 37.5K free to Basic, while the 48K Lynx has about 13.5K Basic. Raw numbers can be misleading.

The maximum resolution of the graphics is another selling point fraught with problems for the unwary. For example, the BBC Model B has a maximum resolution of 640 by 256 pixels. However, this mode restricts you to two colours, it requires 20K of precious RAM (which means there is hardly any room for the program) and a normal TV receiver can't display it properly anyway.

Sounds need to be listened to carefully. For example, one micro offers 8 octaves of sound and another only 3.5 octaves. Nevertheless, both produce only 255 different frequencies (notes) from Basic. Another machine has four sound channels, but only one can be used at a time. Yet another has great sound potential, and no sound statements in Basic!

If all else fails, take advice. Some machines are a better bet than others, but bear in mind there are no certainties. My shortlist of micros to look at would be — in alphabetical order — the Acorn BBC Model B (£400) and the Acorn Electron (£200), the Atari 600XL (£160) and 800XL (£250), and the Commodore 64 (£230). The weakest of these is the Electron. The Atari and Commodore models, however, need their own special cassette recorders for storing programs — an extra cost — while the BBC Model B needs an expensive extra chip if you want to add disc drives.

For a cheaper option, perhaps the best value machine is the Sinclair Spectrum (16K £100, 48K £130), simply because it has the more, good-cheap software. It lacks a proper keyboard, has poor sound, and needs expanding — at extra cost — to bring it up to the level of the others. Nevertheless, it is a remarkably powerful machine for the money. The Oric is also worth considering: it has better sound and a better keyboard than the Spectrum, but nowhere near as much software.

In fact, all today's home microcomputers are astonishingly cheap compared to their historic cost. Whichever you buy, you won't have to pay much for an interesting, and entertaining, step into the future.